Interesting NY Times Sunday magazine article about Tetris being used to treat P.T.S.D.: http://tinyurl.com/ydjsnxu You will have to scroll to see this article.  There are lots of other articles worth reading in this issue.

Forgive this a small, digression as I briefly summarize. I confess, that when I first considered the Blogging Assignment at the begining of 670, I thought this was going to be easy, in fact I was certain this last posting was going to be cake.  Frankly it’s turned out to be the most frustrating of [...]

http://www.celebritycalamity.com/ While searching for various games that focus on teaching young adults about financial planning, I came across a simulation built in Flash called “Celebrity Calamity.” In this interactive video simulation, the player assumes the role of Financial Advisor to a celebrity of their choice. This job entails balancing the cash in the checking account [...]

I recently purchased and opened an early Christmas present for the family.  This present for the “family” was the Wii gaming system.  I had not had much experience playing games on the Wii system, so I was a bit apprehensive about bringing this time sponge (or any video game) into my home.  As I was [...]

I chose to profile Don Rawitsch, the creator of the wildly popular educational game Oregon Trail. Oregon Trail is computer-based game based on the history and facts of the American pioneers who traveled across the country in search of better opportunities in the Oregon territories in the 1840s. “The primary  objective of this game is [...]

Career Odyssey Board Game The Career Odyssey board game is designed to help players determine what may be a good career field for them. There are over 12 major career areas made up of 100 career cards that describe talents required in a particular field to be successful. The career cards also include information on employment [...]

As I thought of e-games or sims to write about for this month’s post, I tried to think of games that really held my attention but were in fact quite simple.  I almost immediately thought of Snake, which I (and many others I’m sure) used to play on my cell phone several years back.  This [...]

Play-By-Play Screenshots Analysis

Classic card games endure as a popular pastime for some people. In this day and age of computers and video games, what makes an old fashioned game of Gin or Spades appealing? Is it simply a factor of age – those of us who are old enough to predate computer games are the only ones [...]

I happened on Gamestar Mechanic (G*M) and you have to check it out.  (I also notice it appears in Bernie’s Delicious links.)  It is a game environment where players can learn about game design by creating games, and is scheduled for preview in spring, 2010.  The Teacher’s Guide has wonderful ideas for game design and [...]

My father’s dream of flying and the vision of James Paul Gee Looking back… Because my experience with electronic games is limited to the handful of floppy disks that lived next to my family’s Apple IIe computer, I have found myself taking journeys into my childhood, trying to remember what those games were (other than [...]

When I think of an electronic game that really keeps you wanting more and more I just think of Call of Duty: World at War.  When I got this game last year, I played it as much as I could.  There were times I was frustrated, however I just kept trying and trying and trying [...]

  asdfg ;lkjh.  Seem familiar?  No, it’s not online cursing.  Those are the home keys on a computer keyboard that, at one time, we either formally or informally learned.  How did you learn how to type?  Was it during visits to the computer lab back in middle school?  Was is through having to keep up [...]

Solitaire Many times I have walked through the halls at work and seen that spread of electronic cards on a colleague’s monitor that is the telltale sign they’re playing Solitaire and I know I am not the only one who has fallen victim to telling myself, just one more game and then I’ll get back [...]

Avoiding Distractions. In February 2009 Time Magazine published an article about Doodling and it’s usefulness in the ability to pay attention. Here is a quote from that article: “Doodling, in contrast, requires very few executive resources but just enough cognitive effort to keep you from daydreaming, which — if unchecked — will jump-start activity in [...]

This past weekend I flew back east to spend Thanksgiving with my family.  We celebrated the holiday at my Grandparents place in West Virginia.  They live in an enormous log mansion, at the foot of a mountain, in a wooded area right outside a small town called Berkely Springs.  It is very peaceful there…lots of [...]

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m slightly addicted to casual gaming, and Desktop Tower Defense is high on my list of favorite games. There are a lot of tower defense games out there, but Desktop Tower Defense is by far my favorite in the genre. The playing surface looks like a typical office [...]

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is an electronic game for the Nintendo platform. In the game, players choose a character from the Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog franchise who have different levels of strength and skill or the player can choose a self-created avatar. Players then use a wireless controller and “nun [...]

This is an online version of the classic board game.  We’re studying how to graph points in algebra class, so we played battleship!  To be honest, I picked the game because it’s online, it looks good, and it deals with plotting coordinates (in particular, this was a good game because the coordinates aren’t labeled, which [...]

As my 8 year old son has become more and more intrigued by the Club Penguin game, both in their online community as well as their Nintendo DS game, I decided to profile this game idea for the November blog.  Club Penguin has been touted as ”Social Networking for Kids” by the developers of the games.  The [...]

Wurdle is essentially “Boggle” for the iPhone. Wurdle is a single user, non-cooperative game. Players can post particularly stellar scores online, however, most of the time a player can only attempt to outplay his/her own high score. Of course, the motivation to play a game like Wurdle is not competition, but simple non-commital entertainment. Wurdle [...]

My seven year old son plays egames religiously.  He started off playing games at NickJunior.com and PBSkids.org.  A friend of mine introduced him to Nintendo8, a website that houses hundreds of old-school games.  He then quickly found his way to the realm of online egames.  About six months ago, I noticed my husband was playing [...]

This entry is about a simulator called the Ship’s Control and Navigation Training System (SCANTS), built at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1986 partly in response to a very tragic Coast Guard accident.  Coast Guard men and women throughout Florida gather at the Blackthorn Memorial  in St. Petersburg, Florida every year on January 28th [...]

Sure, I like football and like to watch a good game especially when the Chargers beat the Broncos but for the past 3 years I have listened, watched and learned as my boyfriend plays Fantasy Football. Every Friday afternoon he sits down in front of the computer and makes his picks for the weekend games [...]

Today, I realized that there must be something intrinsic in me that makes me like to hunt. I am forever hunting for my keys, clothes, coffee, notes, papers, purse and just about everything else I don’t purposely choose to hunt for. It dawned on me that my most recent e-game was a game of hunting. [...]

The electronic game I want to review it World Golf Tour or WGT. This is a free web-based game based from San Francisco. They tout themselves as “the world’s most authentic golf experience”. After playing for several months I would have to agree. The homepage of WGT is where one creates their account. From that [...]

Genesis is an online text mud, or multi-user dungeon.  It is one of the older games in this genre, having been originally created in 1989 on the game engine coded by Lars Pensjo in Sweden.  It is an open-source game–that is, both the code and the content of the game have been a non-profit, group [...]